Idlebones

Tiny Dancer 6

January 7, 2007 – 0:02

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gracie’s Father was standing by the freshly lit fire when she awoke,
squeezing his mouse hair socks with the big toe holes against the wood
of the drying frame. The acorn shell wash basin sat rocking by his
side, filled to the brim with washing as steam rose elegantly from
within to brush the wooden boards of the roof of their home. Grace
pursed her lips against her wakening, and spread her arms about her
head in an exaggerated yawn.

“Morning Father”, she said sleepily, covering her mouth to disguise
her yawn, her blond locks cascading over her brow.

Damione turned and smiled at his daughter. She looked tired again, he
thought, worrying slightly about how she was sleeping, He had noticed
lately that Grace had woken with less vigour that usual, almost as if
she hadn’t slept at all. She is growing up, after all, he thought. He
couldn’t help but notice how much she looked like her mother,
especially when she brushed her hair from her eyes. A pang of loss
burned in his heart for the briefest second, before Grace pulled the
pillow from beneath her head and placed it over her head, as only
Grace would do. His heart, that emptied every night, devoid of his
love, Dermila, would fill every morning as he welcomed his daughter
into another day. Grace’s happy smiling face was what he lived for
now. Without her, he would, he was sure, have lay in his cot all day
and wizened away his time dreaming of his Dermila. Dermila’s smile,
her love, lived on in Gracie, and Dermila lived on as his beloved
daughter.

“Sleep well sweetie?” he asked tenderly to his pillow-faced daughter.
Stepping over to the stove he had kept hot with willow leaves and
river reeds, he poured her a cup of honeysuckle tea. Her favourite, he
knew.

Gracie sniffed at the warm honeysuckle scent that drifted beneath her
pillow. It tingled her nostrils with the earthy, musky smell of her
father that she loved. The scent that made her feel safe and loved.
She sat up in her bed and watched as her father placed the steaming
green tea by her bed and smiled as she met his gaze.

“Thank you father” she smiled.
Damione smelled of fresh cut grass, she decided.

She watched as her father paced back and forth, adjusting a picture on
the wall here, replacing a sock on the drying frame there. He had
something on his mind, and for the first time, Gracie thought, his
eyes looked old.

Damione was tall, for a fairy. He stood a good two times Grace’s
height, his waist only just below her head as they stood side by side.
His solid arms were brown and solid, wisps of white hairs crossing
them like fine strands of glistening silk beneath the rolled up arms
of his crisp white shirt. Occasionally as he paced, he tugged at the
hem of his moss green waistcoat to bring it down to meet the waist of
his pale moleskin pantaloons. Damione always looked smart. This
morning, however, his shock of white hair and dark golden-brown skin
only shadowed the lost, far away look that showed in his dark brown
eyes. He gazed absently into the fire as Grace rose and stood behind
the sapling-skin divider where she dressed each morning.

This morning, Gracie and her father were due to go hunting in the
forest. To collect berries and seeds for the table, collect grass
roots and dried leaves for clothes, and check her fathers traps for
centipedes and aphids for soup and cooking stock. She dressed quickly
into her tough shrew-skin trousers and jacket, both dyed dark green by
her father, as was her peak cap into which she pushed her curled
bright locks as he had taught her. Emerging eventually from behind the
screen, she joined Damione who waited thoughtfully by the stove. His
gaze was fixed to the floor as she approached. He turned to her as she
took his hand in hers and smiled up at him lovingly. Damione smiled
back.

“We must be careful today” was all he said, before leading her out
into the passageway towards the outer walls.

Damiones heart was low this morning. He paced the passage way behind
his happily skipping daughter with a slow absent stride. He had risen
this morning an full two hours before Grace and left the warm safe
haven of their castle retreat to meet with Idel, the river nymph, who
sat tickling her toes in the cool waters of the castle moat as the sun
began to rise above the black mountains in the distance. Beside her on
a crisp white cloth sat her breakfast of cold meats and berries, lush
green leaves and hot steaming tea, brought to her by her own
enchantment as she watched the sun rise.

Idel was, as water nymphs are, beautiful beyond distraction. Her hair
shone and flowed with changing hue with the passing colours of the
seasons and the arcing sun. At night it cooled to a dark black, jet
coloured shade, and at twilight it took on the auburn-plum colour of
the dusky red tinge on clouds as the sun sets. By day it was
resplendent as yellow gold, and glimmered like the sunlight on wet
leaves. She was the most beautiful creature man or fairy had ever
imagined. Damione, remembering a time when he first set eyes on his
newborn baby, felt the same warm sweet fatherly love for the river
nymph as if she were an innocent child of his own.

As he approached, she turned her lovely emerald eyes and a soft smile
illuminated her magical face. Damione was aware of her siren like
beauty that was bestowed upon her by nature itself, and mindful of the
hearts and minds it had taken of those who happened upon her, as if
facing the beauty itself, as she sat with delicate white skin and
slender limbs, a fine gossamer gown of lilac and leaf green pulled up
to her knees to show her slight legs as they dipped into her rivers
calm. He had taken a seat beside his old friend and waited for her to
speak.

Her voice was calm and even, and whispered softly, like the rippling
water that flowed from mountain streams through the rushes around the
castle moat.

“How are you, my fairy friend. How is your wounded heart?” she asked
as the sun slowly cleared the mountain tops, her hair slowly changing
colour to golden brown.

Damione smiled. Idels lips appeared not to move, except to curve In a
tender smile at the tips. Her words seemed to carry on the breeze that
brushed his ears, rather than from her perfect, daisy white throat.

“It aches yet, Idel” he said simply.

The beautiful water Nymph turned to look back the sky and watched as
the sun broke away from the mountain tops and coloured its slopes. The
first clean green hues of dawn, lightly flecked with orange, were
tracing there fingers across the forest.

“Time will come, and come soon, for you both to return from your
exiles and be reunited with those your hearts long for” she said.

Damione stared at the Water Nymph. It had been years since Drimila had
been taken. Years since he had smelled her scent on his pillow.
Centuries seemed to have passed since he could remember the warm shape
of her curled around his body in loving embrace. Years=85since he had
even begun to believe she might still be returned to him, since he
even stopped trying to convince himself that she still lived.

“But..but Midir=85..” He found he could not convince the words to form
in his mouth.

Idel turned to face him once more. Dawns amber light burned in her
emerald eyes.

“She will return to you, but only when Midir has lost her fight to
subjugate the will of man and fairy alike. But the spirit in Man and
fairy together has proved to strong for her. Even now, Dromad the
black crow is by her side, cawing tales of dancers who dance by the
light of the moon, despite the Kings decree. It is this spirit that
can defeat the black witch. But at what cost? What tiny dancer shall
die to free the men and the fairyfolk, and your sweet Drimila?”

Idels voice drifted away with a light breeze that came across the moat
and played with the reeds at the riverbank. The breeze seemed to
pause, then flick the heads of the reeds with it’s invisible tail
before moving on. Idels voice drifted back into Damiones ear..

“Dromad has seen her. And Dromad will find her for his queen. You
must=85, she must be careful=85″.

With that, she rose, almost as if helped to her feet by invisible,
gentle, arms. It seemed to cause her no effort as she bent and kissed
Fairy Kings old bronze cheek. The kiss burned sweetly against his
skin, as Idel faded into the morning.

Damione had sat for several moments staring into the space where the
water nymph had been, emotions tumbling in his chest, swirling in his
head. A fat tear rolled down his cheek.